They aren’t superheroes. They’re more like demigods. They’re more like the kind of beings who look at superheroes and smirk. They’ve been there and done that when it comes to the entire universe. And this is their story.

My Thoughts

I am a reader of all things Gaiman, so this was a completionist thing for me. It’s one of those forgotten volumes in his bibliography, but it sounded promising. I loved Marvel 1602, so surely this wouldn’t be too far off the mark, at least in quality.

And, well… meh. I love Gaiman and his imagination, so color me deeply surprised that this was so very meh. The characters weren’t very well-developed, the idea being that this was going to turn into an ongoing series sans Gaiman. There wasn’t an ending exactly, the idea being it would be a series. It was mostly exposition about some very strange “creation of the world” stuff that has never really been addressed in the new Marvel books before. And even the other heroes who show up (Iron Man and Wasp and Hank Pym) seem bemused at best with what to do with these new beings, because as stated above.

But the success of this series is obvious. I mean, how many of you have heard of it? It’s nigh on impossible to find the later comics, and the series itself didn’t last very long. This book only works as the beginning of an ongoing story. One where you could say, “ah, well, this one was just okay, but I’d love to see where it goes.” And it doesn’t go anywhere, because no one was buying the comics. So this story just sits there. Alone. With no supplementary material and feeling much weaker for it.

Hilariously, I must share a line from the synopsis for this book: “So why does no one remember any of this?" Because it was fairly underwhelming. I think I’ve discovered that is the answer.